Retail sales facilities often employ inventory management associates that perform different tasks related to inventory management and stocking. One associate may unload items from a delivery truck and place the unloaded items into a receiving area for sorting. Another associate may be responsible for bringing the items to the sales floor and stocking the items on shelves on the sales floor. Yet another associate may be responsible for taking the “overstock” items to the stock room and storing the items in storage bins in the stock room. Still another associate may be responsible for retrieving the “overstock” items from the stock room and delivering the items from the stock room to the shelves on the sales floor. Generally, each associate scans the item and enters information regarding the location of the item into the system.
Since errors in inventory management systems generally result from user input errors, the use of multiple inventory management associates that independently perform separate stocking tasks, item scans, and inventory management system data entry is subject to an increased likelihood of user error and the resulting decreased inventory management efficiency at the retail sales locations. As such, the wrong item may be inadvertently scanned, or information regarding the wrong item may be entered into the inventory management database due to user error, leading to undesired situations where the items stored in the stock room are systematically misplaced, which in turn leads to inefficiency in retrieving such items, since inventory management associates are forced to search for the misplaced items in the stock room or elsewhere at the retail sales facility.
Elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. Certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. The terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary technical meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions by persons skilled in the technical field as set forth above except where different specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.